


your name on every wall

by SamIAm



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Period-Typical Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 14:02:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7364269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamIAm/pseuds/SamIAm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1785, John Trumbull painted a portrait he called 'Mrs. John Barker Church, Son Philip, and Servant.'</p><p>"He didn't even get the title right," Angelica says, showing it to Maria. "That's Richard, not Philip. To say nothing of our faces!"</p><p>"I'll do it properly," Maria promises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your name on every wall

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Maria Cosway painting Angelica.

_Tap tap tap tap_ and a quick cut off.

It’s been _perhaps_ five minutes. At most. Maria cranes around her canvass so Angelica can see her exasperation. “You need a book, dear.”

Angelica looks guilty. “I do not.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I do not!”

“Your needlework, then.”

“I am well able to sit for a portrait!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Mr. Trumbull didn’t give me grief.”

“Uh-huh,” Maria says again, instead of _‘and look how well that turned out.’_

Angelica clearly heard it anyway. "Go back to painting,” she says.

“I’m not even done sketching yet. This will take hours more. Have a servant fetch you something to do.”

Angelica scrunches up her face and pouts. Like her youngest. 

It’s entirely unbecoming and Maria loves her, loves her, loves her, like a kick to the chest. It settles solid in her lungs, weighs down even her eyelids, bends her over trying to contain it all. But then Angelica settles her expression back to something lovely, the piercing calculation she wants Maria to capture. This isn’t something Angelica shares only with Maria, which means Maria can function again.

“Go on. I’ll behave.”

“Uh-huh.” But she ducks back behind her easel and returns to sketching in the erect carriage, the lay of the limbs. A reference of Angelica’s expression was the first thing Maria had drawn, off to the side to be covered by paint later but necessary for when Angelica inevitably tires of self-discipline again.

Maria’s just completed the blocking when Angelica’s knee starts bouncing again. _Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap_ before she catches herself.

“Angelica.”

She huffs.

“Send for something, dear. There’s nothing to be gained by this.”

“I’ll recite for you instead.”

She does. Shakespeare and Voltaire and Paine, poem after speech after essay in two languages, until she has to call in a servant after all to bring her a drink before she can keep going.

Maria will never understand how so much lives in her head. Love and ambition and ideas and ideals, and Maria looks down at this watchful, waiting dissembler that she’s creating, looks up at the impassioned orator it’s modeled after.

It’s not a lie but it’s not enough.

She takes her pencil back up and makes another sketch of _this_ expression as it comes alive on Angelica’s face in the middle of her country’s Declaration: thrilled, thrilling, demanding.

“That’s all for today,” she says when her new reference is complete, but Angelica’s gotten to her favorite part and isn’t content to stop yet.

Maria puts her supplies to rights and wipes her fingers clean on a towel, then when Angelica is done declaiming Maria kisses her. 

Several weeks and many sittings later, Maria finally takes Angelica’s arm and leads her around the easel to show her the result. It’s not the portrait Angelica commissioned to hang up in her salon, but it’s what Maria wanted to paint.

Angelica, sitting, impaling the viewer with a direct gaze, arms folded and head held imperiously high so the viewer knows they are fully known and found wanting. Unwelcome.

Angelica, standing in breeches behind her seated self, hands aloft in a statesman’s pose, gaze still direct. But this time she’s imploring, not distant at all. If the viewer will just be caught up in her fervor, they can become her compatriot. 

"I can’t display this,” Angelica says. She doesn’t look away though, and she doesn’t look disappointed. Her beautiful, black eyes have gone shiny.

“No,” Maria agrees. Angelica’s much too private to let everyone see her like Maria does. “I suppose it’ll have to be a gift, then.”

Angelica continues to stare at the painting of herselves and Maria moves behind her, holds her around the waist, and kisses the back of her head. She doesn't go further than that, just lets them both indulge in the fantasy of Angelica as a public figure.

Maria will start the actual commission tomorrow. For now, this is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Tumblr, revised for posting to AO3.
> 
> The painting's date and title are both sourced from Wikipedia. The identity of the infant is sourced from a volunteer at the Schuyler Mansion.
> 
> (numa numa numa yay)


End file.
